A Survivor Remembers

March 13, 1999|By DAVID CHERNICKY Daily Press

HAMPTON — Esquire Ogden Samuels said he had no doubt last summer the gunman in the back seat of his cab would shoot him. Instead of giving in to the demand for money, Samuels tried to grab the robber's handgun.

Samuels pulled the suspect's gun hand forward and bit the wrist. Moments later, a bullet exploded into the back of the cab driver's head. The assailant and an accomplice pushed Samuels from the cab.

The .38-caliber bullet penetrated Samuels' skull and drove bone fragments a few centimeters into the brain. His recovery over the past several months has been painful, and he continues to suffer short-term memory loss.

Samuels, 35, recounted the Aug. 31 ordeal Wednesday, on what he thought would be the eve of the trials of the suspects. He learned later Wednesday that the proceedings for Todd A. Smith, the alleged triggerman, and Samuel A. Aaron, the accused accomplice, have been rescheduled for May.

Smith and Aaron were 19 when police charged them with malicious wounding, robbery, carjacking and three counts of using a firearm.

A graduate of Hampton High and Hampton University, Samuels left the Peninsula in 1988 to work in Detroit. There he met his wife, Letitia, and started a family. Samuels said he thought Hampton was a safer place to raise children, so he moved his family back in August 1997. A few months later, he was hired as a driver for Harvest Taxicabs.

Samuels said on the night of the assault, two men flagged him down at 34th Street and Jefferson Avenue in Newport News about 1:30 a.m. He said they first asked to go to Denbigh, but minutes later, directed him to Granger Court in Hampton to pick up a girlfriend.

He said on the way they ordered him to stop on East Lewis Road.

As Aaron climbed from the front seat, Smith - who was sitting in the back - placed the barrel of a gun against the back of the cabbie's head and demanded money, according to the victim. He said he was convinced he was about to be shot, so he grabbed the suspect's hand and bit hard. A bullet blasted into his head.

The suspects fled into the summer night.

Three men in a car found Samuels staggering on a nearby street, and, noticing blood on his clothing, took him to his father's house a few blocks away. From there, he was rushed to Riverside Regional Medical Center.

"He could have died in a second with this injury," said Wallace Garner, the neurosurgeon who operated on Samuels. "Somebody was really looking out for him. It wasn't his time."

Forty-five days after the shooting, Samuels' wife gave birth to the couple's fifth daughter.

Samuels' medical bills totaled more than $15,000, with the Crime Victims' Compensation Program covering most of the cost. Samuels, whose wife attends nursing school, said he has since been unable to find steady work.

Samuels says he has no reservations about facing the two suspects in court.

"I already saw both of them at their preliminary hearings," he said. "They were quite surprised my memory was so vivid. I guess they thought when someone gets shot in the head you would have a hard time remembering everything, but God has made it possible for me to remember everything."

David Chernicky can be reached at 247-4743 or by e-mail at dchernicky@dailypress.com